by Wil Mara
“Okay,” he said, “now let’s see if we can figure out what this guy looks like.”
He launched the file, watched it once from start to finish, then went back to the first frame he wanted to improve—Storm-Drain Man, turned to the right, offering a strong profile. This was frame 177 according to the counter in the lower right-hand corner. Hammond drew an isolation box around the head and enlarged it. Now it filled most of the screen. The image was blurry and soft, but two clicks of the sharpness filter improved it considerably.
“Wow,” Sheila said.
“Latin heritage for sure.” Olive skin, dark hair in low, tight curls. He looked rough and rugged, with a scowl that spoke of his grudge against the world. The image still wasn’t perfect, but it was the best view they had so far. Hammond saved it as a separate file on the desktop.
“Now for the other angle—straight on.”
He advanced the film slowly, and the gunman turned. There would be a split second—Hammond would know it when he saw it—when a certain clarity of character was visible. Something in the eyes, perhaps. It occurred just before the president’s limousine came into view. Hammond trapped the face again and brought it forward. Sheila gasped this time—the man seemed to be looking at them, the eyes fierce.
“He’s just a boy,” she said, and Hammond caught a trace of what he thought was compassion in her voice. “Look at how young.”
“Yeah. And look at the frame number,” Hammond said, pointing.
“232?”
“That’s incredible.”
“Why incredible?”
“It was also a significant frame in the Zapruder film.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No—it’s the one where the president has his hands balled into fists and pressed against his throat with his elbows sticking out, and the First Lady has just turned to see what’s wrong. Not the most important frame, but still noteworthy.”
“Does that mean my mother started filming about the same time that Abraham Zapruder did?”
“It’s very possible. Either way, I find it kind of eerie that both films have an important frame 232.”
“Tell me about it. This just gets weirder and weirder.”
“Maybe it’s a sign,” Hammond said, smiling. “A good sign.”
“Let’s hope so.”
Hammond studied the image more carefully. “The image still isn’t that good. Even the best software in the world can’t perform miracles. The best results come when you view it from about a foot or so away, where you can determine enough native details to fill in the rest with your imagination.” Hammond shook his head. “But wow, just look at that face. Those eyes . . .”
“Any ideas?” Sheila asked.
“About what?”
“About who he is?”
Hammond slumped back in the chair and gave it some thought, never taking his eyes off the screen. “No, not a clue. I think I’ve read every major book on the assassination, and I’ve scarcely even heard speculation about a possible Latino conspirator.”
“Cuban, maybe? Because of the Castro connection?”
“Could be, sure.”
“In the storm drain . . . incredible. Who would’ve thought?”
“Like I said at your mom’s house, that possibility has been discussed before. Most of those theories have been dismissed, but think about it from an assassin’s perspective. It’s actually a very good vantage point.”
“How in the world did he even get down there?”
“He could’ve entered through any nearby manhole. A schematic of the underground pipe network wouldn’t have been that hard to find. That kind of information was available to the public. He could’ve gone down the night before and just waited. A trained assassin would be patient like that.”
“It’s ridiculous, though. He could’ve gotten caught so easily.”
“Not necessarily. He could’ve had a silencer, which would have muted the shot. He might have been able to fire without sticking the barrel out that far. One dull thump in a noisy crowd would be nearly impossible to hear. And as soon as the president was hit, all attention would be turned to the limo. The ensuing confusion would have provided the shooter with enough cover to work his way through his arranged escape route.”
“Incredible.”
“There’s another possibility too.”
“That he expected to get caught?”
“Exactly. That he was essentially on a suicide mission, so escape wasn’t even a factor.”
She shook her head. “Insane.”
“Tell me about it.”
Hammond studied the photos of the gunman again, raking through his memory. There were so many peripheral figures among the numerous outlying theories. But this man was completely new, found along a road few conspiracists had ever traveled.
Perhaps just one, he thought with a smile.
“I know what we can do.”
“What’s that?”
“Print out the two images, then go see my friend.”
“Oh yeah, you mentioned him before. Who is he?”
“I’ll show you.”
Hammond went to the web and did a Google image search for the name Dr. Benjamin Burdick. The two most common results were a portrait of a bearded, bespectacled, sandy-haired man in his midforties and the cover of a book that looked as though it had been printed at Staples instead of by a formal publishing house. The title was The Truth behind the Lies: Your Government’s Involvement in the Assassination of John F. Kennedy, with Burdick’s name along the bottom.
“It’s more than three hundred pages long, but it was self-printed because none of the publishers would touch it.”
“Too far out there?”
“Too realistic. I’ve read it from front to back, and it gave me the shivers. Ben’s not one of the crazies, believe me. He’s got two PhDs and knows how to research better than anyone I’ve ever met. And he’s very serious about what happened in Dallas that day. After the public reaction to this first book, he started a second one. It’s supposed to be the definitive work on the assassination.”
“How do you know him?”
“I found the first book online years ago while I was digging up other sources. Most of the self-published stuff was garbage, but not this. After I read it, I got in touch with him. Within ten minutes we were hitting it off like old friends. He is a little crazy, but good crazy. My kind of crazy. He’s got the most wicked case of OCD in the world, keeps his house so neat I think he vacuums the lawn. He’s a health nut, too. Eats nothing but vegetables and works out three times a day. And he collects Pez dispensers. He has hundreds of ’em. But underneath all that is one of the most brilliant and kindhearted people you could ever meet.”
“Sounds like a fun guy.”
“He really is. I came out here a few years ago to meet with several academics who’ve studied the assassination, and he was one of them.”
“You mean he lives in Dallas?”
Hammond nodded. “On the outskirts. He’s a professor at Southern Methodist. Here, take a look.”
He found the SMU site and navigated to the faculty page, then to Burdick’s. One of the photos from the Google image search was in the upper left-hand corner—a smiling Burdick leaning against a loaded bookcase. In the right column was a brief vita, and beneath that was his office phone number and e-mail address.
Hammond took his cell phone out of his pocket. “Let me give him a call and see if he can pull himself away from his Pez dispensers long enough to talk with us.”
It rang four times before voice mail took over. Hammond was surprised to hear a young woman’s voice instead of Burdick’s. His first reaction was that he had dialed the wrong number. “You have reached the office of Dr. Benjamin Burdick. Dr. Burdick is on extended leave from the university until further notice. If this is an urgent matter, please call Dr. Alma Sentis at . . .”
Hammond flipped the phone shut. “Huh.”
“What’s wrong?”
&nbs
p; “The message said he’s on extended leave.”
“Is that strange?”
“Very strange. He loves his job, and he’s a workaholic. Prime candidate for a stroke.”
“I don’t mean to sound morbid, but maybe he had one.”
“I sure hope not.”
Hammond got on the Internet again, this time navigating to Burdick’s personal site. What came up took his breath away—
ERROR 404—PAGE NOT FOUND
“That can’t be right,” he said firmly. “No way.” He double-checked the address bar along the top of the browser. The URL was correct—www.drbenjaminburdick.com.
“He had tons of stuff on here—articles, photographs, links. And a lot of stuff about the new book. Teasers and things like that, hints about all the new information it contained. You could also download the first book as a free PDF file. He didn’t even care about selling it. He just wanted to get the word out.” Hammond shook his head. “Something’s definitely wrong.”
“You said he lives around here. Do you know where?”
“I do.”
“Let’s go knock on his door.”
Rydell’s secretary tensed when she heard her boss’s approaching footsteps in the hallway. He had never caused her to tense before, not even when he interviewed her back in 1991. She had worked for a corporate CFO before Rydell, and that man knotted her stomach every minute of the day. He was a jerk of the highest order who knew how to get to people and loved doing it. When a friend recommended this job, she figured it couldn’t be any worse. Frederick Rydell turned out to be the best boss she’d ever had, and that familiar sense of dread gradually withdrew into hibernation. Now it had awoken from its long sleep. He hadn’t said anything nasty to her in the last two days, hadn’t even raised his voice. But she could sense that his mood was like that of a rabid dog on a frayed leash. After all these years, their relationship was more like a marriage than anything else.
He was frowning when he appeared and walking at an accelerated pace toward his door.
“You received a few messages,” she said with a smile, holding out a set of little pink slips. He took them without looking at her and mumbled a thank-you, then opened the door and went inside. On any other day, he would sort through them on the spot and give instructions on each, sometimes with colorful and funny comments thrown in. Not today, though. He still had the good manners to close the door quietly, but under the circumstances he might as well have kicked it shut.
Rydell dropped the slips on the edge of his desk and sat down. Tapping his keyboard did not clear the screen saver—a CIA logo floating against a black background—but rather caused a password prompt to appear in front of it. Rydell paused a moment, then typed in the eight-key alphanumeric phrase with remarkable speed, his fingers moving over the keys in a chattery blur. The pause came from having to remember it, which both concerned and irritated him; he never forgot passwords.
He had always been able to push distractions out of his mind, always been the master of his own concentration. But this Babushka Lady film, and the fact that Jason Hammond and the Baker woman were running around loose . . . He could feel his blood pressure rise every time he thought about it. Sheila Baker would have been easy enough to handle by herself, but Hammond . . . That could be real trouble, a voice teased over and over, and then the fear that he hated more than anything else surged into his system.
He had considered prematurely activating his postretirement escape plan, gaming out the scenario to see if a reasonable conclusion could be reached. But it was simply beyond the realm of the possible. The sudden disappearance of a person in his position would set off alarm bells in every corridor of government. A massive manhunt would be launched, word would leak to the press, and every citizen would become an involuntary de facto agent in the search. Even if he managed to elude capture, every square inch of his life would be scrutinized. No matter how smart you were—and he knew this as well as anyone ever had—you never wanted to find yourself under the magnifying glass of the American intelligence system. Sooner or later, you ended up like a dead frog in a high school biology class, pinned to a dissection tray with your belly sliced open and your guts hanging out.
The screen saver vanished, revealing an Excel spreadsheet groaning with financial figures. It was the last agency budget he would ever do, and although he had found these rivetingly boring in the past, he found a certain comfort in this one. Just as he was about to turn his full attention to it, however, the phone in his pocket vibrated.
He scowled when he saw Birk’s number. He had thought seriously about sending another man out to eliminate and replace Birk. He knew one who was particularly nasty, a true psychopath who made Birk seem saintly by comparison. But that would’ve been more trouble than it was worth; that operative was too blunt a tool to use for such a delicate mission. Birk, at least, had some finesse. And there was always the chance Birk would survive an attempt on his life, which would further complicate matters.
All that aside, Rydell had still made a point of giving his well-paid employee an epic reaming when he learned of Hammond and Baker’s escape. No way the little thug was going to be spared that.
He accepted the call and said, “Wait,” then went into the bathroom and turned on the exhaust fan. “Okay, what is it?”
“Hammond made contact with one of them.”
“Which one?”
“Benjamin Burdick. He called Burdick’s house just a few moments ago.”
For the first time in what felt like an eternity, Rydell smiled.
18
HAMMOND FOUND Burdick’s book on another JFK assassination site, downloaded it, and brought the laptop along so Sheila could read it in the car.
“There are some pretty serious accusations here,” she said, scanning the table of contents. “They didn’t stir up any controversy?”
“Oh, they did. They sent ripples through the intelligence community. Most people just never heard about it.”
She went to the About the Author page and found the same photo from the SMU faculty site. Burdick looked remarkably ordinary. He could have been an auto mechanic and part-time deer hunter. But a closer look at the eyes revealed a steely awareness, a native intelligence that was easy to miss. This was a careful man, Sheila sensed. A curious and somewhat-skeptical man. Someone who was not easily fooled.
She read through the bio, which was more detailed than the one on the university website.
“He has a doctorate in American history?”
“In American history, yes, and another in world history.”
“Married?”
“His wife passed away a while back. They had two children, both of whom are grown and gone. Now he lives alone.”
“That’s sad.”
“He keeps in constant contact with his kids. The three of them are very close. And he manages to keep himself busy the rest of the time.”
She went back to the main text. “He makes a very convincing argument that the federal government took part in the assassination.”
“He felt he didn’t present enough hard proof in that book. But the last time we spoke, he said the new one would take care of that.” Hammond made a right turn that took them off the highway and onto a gravel road. “I know a lot of this sounds crazy, but he’s not a screwball, believe me. He considers the assassination one of the greatest travesties ever committed against the American public. Even if his accusations have raised some eyebrows, he’s famous for the thoroughness of his research, so his conclusions are hard to argue. He covers his bases very well, and he won’t open his mouth about something unless he’s certain.”
“Have you ever discussed my mom’s film?”
“Funny you should say that. I was trying to remember. . . . We did have a conversation about it once. He said something like, ‘If the Babushka Lady really did shoot a film, she would’ve had the only good moving picture from that side of the limo when the shots were fired.’ He thought it might show something the Zaprude
r film didn’t.”
“Good guess.”
“He’s going to love Storm-Drain Man. This is the kind of thing that really gets him going.”
They rumbled up to an aluminum mailbox with the name Burdick printed on the side. Another right turn brought them down a brief wooded lane, which made a horseshoe in front of a large frame house with a wraparound porch. It was white with black shutters and flower beds on either side of the steps.
Hammond came to a halt but didn’t kill the engine. “Uh-oh.”
The beds, which had once been vibrant with floral life, were now plots of dried earth crawling with weeds. The paint on the porch was cracked and peeling, and some of the downspouts had broken free of the rain gutters.
“So much for being the neatest guy in the world,” Sheila said.
“No, he is the neatest guy in the world. If there was a Nobel Prize for tidiness, he’d win it every year.”
Hammond shut off the engine and got out, noting other signs of ruination—a rusted lawn mower sitting outside its shed, the grass consuming it in a note of irony. When they went up the front steps, Hammond saw a rip in the screen door, and one corner hung down like a dog’s ear.
“Ben would never allow that,” he said, pointing. “He’d have fixed it as soon as it happened. You know the saying ‘A place for everything, and everything in its place’? That’s Ben.”
“Maybe he moved.”
“I thought about that, but his name’s still on the mailbox.”
He rang the doorbell—a majestic two-note bing-bong that echoed inside—and waited. After a long moment, Hammond pulled the screen door back and knocked hard on the other, causing it to drift forward. Pushing it farther, he took a cautious step forward.
“Ben?”
The furniture and the decor were as Hammond remembered—the polished mahogany table in the dining room, the grandfather clock standing in a corner, and in the hallway, a narrow table with a Tiffany lamp and a collection of framed photos.